Former PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the opposition Law and Justice, paraded his new team, Sunday, formed so that his party is “one hundred percent ready to rule”.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski told journalists that the new team was not a shadow cabinet but a National Working Group to prepare a smooth transition to power should they win a future general election.
The team includes three women: Aleksandra Natalli-Swiat (finance), Grazyna Gesicka (economy), Joanna Kluzik-Rostowski (social affairs and health). Krzysztof Jurgiel will lead working groups on agriculture and environmental protection issue, Ryszard Terlecki for education, culture and science.
MEP and former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro will handle legal issues, Przemyslaw Gosiewski on constitutional and political issues and Ryszard Legutko will speak on foreign policy.
“"The team [will make sure] we are one hundred percent ready to rule,” said Jaroslaw Kaczynski, in contrast to the present Civic Platform-led government, who were not, he claimed.
Kaczynski said that after two years in power - which the government celebrated last week - the government had not much to show the voters as successes. “And what they present as a successes are actually failures,” he said. He gave as an example the controversial introduction of lowering the school starting age to six years old.
The leader of Law and Justice stressed that in 2011 - the year of the next scheduled general election - his party will have specific bills to pass through parliament and an agenda worked out. "Without a change, no new quality of Polish public, economic and social life will emerge,” he said.
MP Aleksandra Natalli-Swiat said she intends to secure increased for the state by means of clamping down on the black market. Another objective is to keep companies of strategic importance within the public sphere.
“The national capital cannot be treated solely as a source of one-off profits for the budget, which is why we will maintain state control over enterprises of strategic importance, including the energy sector, as is the case in the majority of European countries, such as France, Sweden or Ireland,” she said yesterday.
Former regional development minister Grażyna Gesicka, who will coordinate a team of analysts looking at economic expansion. believes that Poland, as a developing country, should not be limited by EU regulations which will harm GDP growth. This mostly includes suspending environmental directives, such as the EU’s Nature 2000 legislation, until 2015.
An opinion poll released by OBOP on November 19 gave Law and Justice 24 percent support, significantly behind Civic Platform with 53 percent. (pg)
Source: PAP/IAR